//------------------------------// // Sing for me // Story: Do That Again // by Bad Horse //------------------------------// “Now, listen up,” Annie said, after she'd untied Snowfall over the other pony's objections and they'd eyed each other across the room for a while, one suspiciously, the other lasciviously. “I thought it over, and I’ve got a plan I think is mutually satisfactory.” “Wonderful!” Snowfall said, clapping her front hooves together. “So come on over here. And,” she added in a husky voice, “bring your lasso.” “No, mutually satisfactory.” “That means satisfactory to me. And only one thing can satisfy me.” Snowfall ran her eyes over the spirit’s un-body and licked her lips. The spirit took a few steps further back. “What I mean to say is, I’m not exactly the right pony for your kind of, um, needs.” “I’ll be the judge of that,” Snowfall said. “But I know somepony who is.” Snowfall looked confused. Then her eyes lit up. “Oh! Is Professor Flintheart a spirit now?” Her excitement faded at Annie’s look of non-recognition. “Uh… I don’t know, but I’ve already made the call, and it’s not the kind you can take back.” Something in Annie’s manner made Snowfall catch her breath. When she let it out, a mist appeared before her. The room, she realized, had grown colder. Annie glanced around nervously. “I’ll be, ah, leaving now. So long. Have… fun.” She smiled awkwardly on the last word before trotting out through the window and into the sky. Snowfall looked out the window. Was it her imagination, or was the sky darker? No… not the sky. The room. Not quite mist or haze, but a spreading darkness, a kind of anti-light, was rolling slowly across her laboratory. The glow of the furnace, just halfway across the room, was muffled in layers of black until its oranges and yellows were crimped to a distant monochromatic gray. The sunny light coming through the window thought twice about it and decided to shine somewhere else. Her fur stood on end of its own accord, and Snowfall became aware of a tall, hooded figure, all in black, looming over her. “Hello again, my little pony,” the figure said in a kind alto voice. “As you may recall, I am the spirit of Hearth’s Warming future.” The figure bent down slowly, seeming to descend on Snowfall from a great height, and without realizing it Snowfall crouched down lower and lower until she found herself lying on the floor. She felt the whiskers of the spirit’s night-blue muzzle, just a blur on the edge of Snowfall’s vision, brushing the inside of her left ear. “I hear you are a slow learner,” the spirit whispered. Each word she spoke breath sent a pulse of warmth down the side of Snowfall’s face. Then the spirit shook her head sadly. Snowfall’s left hind leg began to twitch involuntarily. “Fortunately for you, I am a very patient teacher.” The sharp edge of a cold hoof ran slowly up the inside of one of Snowfall’s forelegs, made a few lingering brushes within the sensitive, thin-haired leg pits, then ran across the front of her chest and down the other leg, before settling on her flank to absent-mindedly trace out the four-points of Snowfall’s special snowflake. “Will… will you sing for me again?” Snowfall asked. The spirit laughed. “No, my dear. This time you will sing for me.” The day after the day after Hearth’s Warming, Snow Dash came into her employer’s laboratory early in the morning, walked over to the furnace, and was starting to shovel out the old ashes when she noticed a large, dark sack lying between the workbench and the potions shelves. She had finished clearing out the ashes and was shovelling in new coal when the sack fell over and made a thump. She had just lit the fire and closed the grill when the sack groaned in the voice of Snowfall Frost. Dash sprinted across the room. The sack was a pony, now lying on its side with all four legs spread wide apart, presenting its—her—underside to the ceiling. She was dressed from head to toe—encased might be a better word—in a tough, slick black fabric Dash had never seen before, with only a few strategically placed holes. Her head was covered by a close-fitting mask of the same material, and her mouth was propped open by a black rubber ball, tied there by a cord going through a hole in the ball and around her neck. Each front hoof was tied to its matching rear hoof, and the rear hooves and legs were splayed far apart, lashed to opposite ends of a long, black iron bar. Dash struggled with the knots holding the rubber ball in before she finally ran to get a knife. She ran back, cut the knots away, and sent the ball bouncing off into a corner of the room. The mask was held on by an elaborate system of laces and hooks, which Dash was eventually able to undo. She cast the thing to the floor, revealing the face of Snowfall Frost. Her fur was wet and matted, and smelled like sweat. Her eyes were closed. “Snowfall! What happened? Who did this to you?” The lavender mare’s eyes opened. She blinked several times before focusing on the blue pony before her. She still had a dazed, faraway look. “Dash,” she said. Dash cradled Snowfall’s head in her forelegs. “Yes, Snowfall.” “Dash—” Snowfall coughed. Flecks of spit spattered Dash’s chin. Dash began to cry. “I can hear you, Snowfall.” Snowfall raised her head suddenly to stare up into Dash’s eyes with the ferocious intensity of a religious zealot. “Dash—I love Hearth’s Warming.” She glared at Dash as if daring her to deny it. Then her head fell back heavily into Dash’s hooves and she began to snore.